


In Vino Veritas

by Pollydoodles



Series: The Wider Pizza-Verse [12]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 16:10:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7514710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pollydoodles/pseuds/Pollydoodles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky finds his tongue a little looser than it usually is, after Thor shares out some of his Asgardian liquor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Vino Veritas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LaTessitrice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaTessitrice/gifts).



“Oh holy - are you – is he – are those whiskey bottles?” Darcy choked as she entered the common room and found a number of bodies sprawled across the couch and chairs. In Barton’s case, on the floor. Upon a closer inspection, he was – mostly – less sprawled and considerably more passed out. 

Tony jerked himself into a sitting position, or at least an approximation of one, and blinked at her blearily before casting his gaze about him. He sniffed and wrinkled his nose. “Some are whiskey bottles.” He nodded as he spoke, as if agreeing with himself. “But some are vodka bottles. And those pesky little fellas over there are beer bottles.” Stark gestured with a lazy hand towards the long marble table which was littered with glasses and bottles, some knocked over and dribbling remains of beer over the polished surface. 

Darcy stared at the sheer amount of alcoholic debris scattered over the room. 

“Wait-” She said, taking a step back and just about resisting the urge to rub her eyes. “Is that…?” Stark followed her gaze and grinned broadly, despite the throes of sleep tugging hard at his eyelids. 

“Darcy!” Bucky’s eyes lit up as he saw the brunette and, pushing back the chair he was sitting in with an unnecessary amount of force, sending it skittering back over the hardwood floor, he bounded across to her and flung his arms around her waist, pressing his lips to her forehead again and again. 

“What happened here?” She mouthed over his shoulder towards Tony, who merely closed his eyes in response. 

\------- Some hours earlier ------

“What the-”

Steve recoiled slightly as he entered the living room, not having expected to find what appeared to be a party - albeit a small one - in full swing. Thor raised a hand in greeting from the long marble table, a small flask in hand that Steve recognised from previous. Groaning slightly, because it never really seemed to end all that well when Thor brought out the Asgardian liquor, he turned back to the couch. 

“Watch it, Cap,” Tony said with a giggle and a sloppy salute. Bucky, perched on the armrest of the couch, promptly howled with laughter, copied with an equally poor salute of his own, and fell off. Lucky bounced on top of him, licking any exposed flesh he could find in excitement, tail thumping madly against the hardwood floor.

Steve stared.

“What the hell did you give him?” He asked, watching as Bucky wrestled with the dog, rolling over and over on the floor. It was at that point he realised that Bucky’s t-shirt - or, more accurately, one he remembered having misplaced three months previous - was inside out.

“H’only had the same as - hic - us, Cap.” Barton said sleepily from the floor, hands clasped over his chest, eyes closed and only letting out the smallest yelp as Bucky barrelled into him seconds later. Steve narrowed his eyes, and spun on his heel to find Thor beaming down at him. 

“Drink, Captain?” The big Asgardian said cheerfully, holding out a pint in one hand and his little silver flask in the other. Two and two came together rapidly for Steve, making four - and five, and six as well. He put a hand to his face and groaned deeply. 

“Happy?” He said, pointing at Bucky, sprawled across the floor on his back, giggling softly to himself, with the dog sat on top of him now. Bucky’s eyes were half closed, and Steve could see that they were unfocused as he gazed upwards. 

Thor shrugged, the vaguest hint of apology colouring the movement. “It doesn’t have this effect on you.”

“My serum’s different; his is… I don’t even know what his is but it’s not the same.” Steve rounded on Stark who was doing a terrible job of concealing laughter behind his hand. “And you.” He fixed the dark haired man with his least impressed look. “Don’t think I don’t know that you’re behind this.”

“It’s perfect.” Tony sighed happily, and took a throw cushion to the face.

“Is there pizza?” Bucky popped his head up, addressing the room in general, shaggy mane askew but eyes bright and interested. “He said there would be pizza.” With that, he pointed to Tony, reclined on the couch leisurely and smiling like a cat who owned an entire creamery. 

Steve resisted the overwhelmingly strong urge to kick the billionaire, whilst at the same time wondering why he was bothering to hold himself back. 

The Bucky Barnes of the 1930s had been a difficult drunk, happy but a handful to deal with. The singing in the streets kind who’d nearly gotten them arrested when he’d decided to argue with a police officer about appropriate noise levels. The Bucky Barnes of the 1940s, a man whose spirits had been dampened by war, had been a slightly melancholy drunk who’d propped up the bar long after everyone else had tapped out. He wasn’t entirely sure what kind of drunk he’d get from a Bucky Barnes who had, not that long ago, hidden behind an upturned couch when the television asked him what he’d like to watch next. 

The knife embedded squarely in the centre of the 50” flatscreen hadn’t endeared either of them to Stark, who’d been planning on watching Storage Hunters. 

“Hey Steve.” Bucky said loudly, noticing him again properly. He sat up abruptly and Lucky slid off, hitting the floor with a dull thud. The dog scrambled hurriedly to his feet, all four paws scrabbling for purchase until he managed to right himself. Then, tongue hanging out, he plonked his ass firmly on Barton’s feet. 

“Hey, Buck.” Steve sank into the couch next to Stark, and accepted the pint Thor handed him silently. It wouldn’t do anything for him, not even Thor’s liquor did much more than make the ends of his fingers tingle, but he could at least pretend for a moment. 

“Well he’s certainly loosened up.” Tony remarked as Bucky hauled himself to his feet and challenged Thor to an arm wrestle. When the god politely declined, following a sharp look from the captain on the couch, Bucky frowned and then prodded Barton in the ribs with his toes. “You might benefit from doing the same once in a while, Steve.” The billionaire added under his breath, just loud enough for Steve to catch it. 

“I’m plenty loose, Tony.” He hissed back, moving his legs before Barton could roll into them and covering the pint glass with one hand as the other man hit the base of the couch with a thud and a groan. 

“That’s what she said.” Bucky piped up from the floor, earning a bark of laughter from Stark and an eye-roll from Steve. 

\---------

“So what was Rogers like, back in the day?” Stark asked, shooting a wink at Steve who stared back at him without humour. “Fine, upstanding young man, a paragon of virtue, virginity and piousness?”

“Stevie? Naw, he was an asshole.” Bucky mumbled as best he could around a mouthful of chips. He was still sat on the floor, parked at one end of the coffee table and eating his way through most of the food that Tony had called up from the kitchens. “He’ll tell ya he was in the right, but man - I spent half my childhood and his hauling him outta fights and breaking up the beginnings of others.”

Thor gave Steve an approving nod from the other end of the coffee table where he’d dropped himself into a cross-legged position, and Steve imagined that the other man had probably been a bit of a handful as a child himself. 

“Hey, this stuff is great.” Bucky said, pausing from shovelling food into his mouth and looking down at the dregs in his pint glass. “Can a fella get any more of that?” Steve nudged the Asgardian hip flask under the couch with his foot and covered the movement with a cough. Banner gave him a sympathetic look from the other couch. 

“He weren’t as blond, neither.” Bucky said squarely, returning to his previous train of thought with an alarmingly quick about turn, addressing his glass before holding it out to Barton with a plaintive look on his face. The archer, ignoring Steve’s toes which jabbed into his ribs from the side, cracked open another bottle and poured it carefully into the glass. 

Steve’s head shot up from where it had dropped onto his arms, as he processed what it was that Bucky had said. “Excuse me?”

Bucky shrugged. “You weren’t.” He waved his fork in Steve’s direction, the cutlery precariously balanced between thumb and forefinger as the dark haired man tried to focus on his friend. “I remember.” He declared with certainty. “You were a dirty blond at best-”

“-Dirty blond-” Tony laughed, not entirely under his breath, and even Banner managed a small smile from across the table, sitting in the single armchair with his legs swung over one arm and a small glass of whiskey cradled in one hand. Steve shot him an unimpressed look. 

“-And now look at ya.” The fork waved from his head to his feet and back again. “Blonder’n... “ Bucky trailed off, clearly searching for something appropriately blond and coming up with squat. Steve sighed. “Blonder’n a real blond thing.” He finally managed, jabbing the fork towards Steve and narrowly missing impaling the man in the chest with it. 

Steve grabbed at the fork and set it on the arm of the couch, away from Bucky. 

“You dye it, don’t you?” Bucky said, leaning forward and putting his elbow in ketchup. He didn’t seem to notice, though the dog scrambled from where he’d been lying underneath the table, somehow aware of the presence of sauce where he might be able to lick it as though it were a supernatural sense. 

“It ain’t the serum.” He said thoughtfully, peering over at Steve. 

“Buck-”

“It’s the shampoo.” The other man said, leaning back and slapping his own thigh like he’d just discovered the meaning of life. Lucky slobbered over his elbow, one paw precariously in the middle of his crossed legs and the bulk of his chest edging lower and lower until he was laying over Bucky’s thigh. “It lightens it, right?”

“You steal my shampoo.” Steve protested, as Stark laughed outright and Thor snorted from the other end of the table. “Regularly. Wouldn’t your hair be lighter as well if that were the case?”

Bucky made a rude noise and a dismissive gesture towards Steve with one hand. “I’m a shade 77 natural dark chestnut brown.” He said with conviction and a shake of his head. He pointed to his hair, hanging long and brushing against his shoulders. “You ain’t gonna lighten this without a proper colourist and at least a full day at the salon.”

Steve blinked. 

\------

The conversation turned, predictably enough when Steve was around and the others had consumed enough alcohol, to his uniform. The original one, from when - as both Stark and Bucky reminded him enthusiastically - he’d been a fake Captain. 

“I liked the uniform.” Bucky declared, taking the last slice of pizza with no compunction about it. 

“You did?” Steve said doubtfully, leaning forward and stealing half the pepperoni from it before it disappeared into Bucky’s mouth; washing it down with a good long slug of beer. He reflected that, even though it did nothing for him in terms of getting him tipsy, the taste wasn’t half bad. He still preferred the more bitter taste of the beer from his youth - everything seemed to have gotten sweeter over the years - but he could get used to it.

“Yeah,” Bucky said thoughtfully, chewing hard. “You looked like a dick but you had some balls to wear that and traipse about on stage in front of the troops.” Steve wasn’t entirely sure whether he should take that as a compliment or not, and opted instead to say nothing. 

“You’re the only man who’s ever stormed enemy lines wearing tights, Steve.” Bucky placed a hand on the other man’s shoulder solemnly. “That’s a true patriot.”

“God, I think I preferred you when you were quiet.” Steve groaned, face in hands. 

“I don't.” Tony said cheerfully. “Hey Thor, can we put in an advance order for this stuff?”

\-------

“I dunno how he’s still goin’” Barton mumbled from the floor, Lucky spread across his back with a lazy tail thumping from side to side, just as tired as the man he was laying over. “Got more energy in ‘im than the damn Energizer bunny.”

“Darcy,” Bucky breathed against her ear, looping his arms around her waist and pulling her into his chest more firmly. “Darcy, Darcy, Darcy.” She looked up at him and found him gazing back down at her with a soft look in his eyes that she hadn’t quite seen there before. 

“Okay, Buck.” Darcy said, squeezing him tight briefly and then pulling back. “Time for bed, I think.” Tony wolf-whistled from the couch and Steve - collapsed in a tired heap on the floor beside him, exhausted by the night’s events - swung a throw pillow up and into the billionaire’s face firmly, whilst motioning to Darcy to leave, and quickly. 

Darcy took the hint, and tugged at Bucky’s hand. He went willingly. 

\------

“You’re sleeping there, then.” Darcy said, hands on hips and only a slightly exasperated tone in her voice after emerging from her bathroom and finding Bucky spread-eagled on her bed, face burrowed into the pillows with his hair in his eyes. He rolled onto one side and beamed at her steadily. 

She shook her head slightly, unable to keep herself from smiling back at him, and hauled her pyjamas out of the chest of drawers by the bed. She bit her lower lip, chancing a glance over her shoulder at the dark haired man who was watching her with interest. 

This was a new development. 

She’d never actually changed in front of him, per se, but Bucky was usually less… Engaged. Darcy frowned. She’d found herself almost longing for him to see her as a girl, rather than just another friend he lived with, albeit one who he trailed after and curled around most nights. Now his eyes were on her but with a haze of alcohol behind them as well. 

“You gotta turn over, Buck.” She said lightly, swatting at him gently with her shorts. He grinned, catching at them and pulling her down onto the bed with him. His hand went to her waist automatically, and dragged her on top of him. His free hand went to her cheek, brushing over it with care, and he gazed up at her with a slightly unfocused smile on his face. 

“You’re beautiful.” He said, earnestly, and she blushed before pulling away and scrambling to her knees. Bucky lay with his head propped on one bent arm, his metal arm laying lazily over his side as he stared at her. Darcy shoved hair behind her ear and smiled uncertainly, unused to this sort of attention from him. 

“Why did you kiss me?” She blurted, unable to keep it inside her any longer. 

“Because I wanted to.” Bucky said simply, apparently unfazed by the question. Darcy let out a breath she’d not been aware she’d been holding, and his left hand moved towards her thigh, tracing a delicate circle over her leg. She shivered slightly under his touch. 

“You’re everything.” He said steadily, his hand spreading out over her thigh and squeezing her gently, possessively. 

“You're drunk.” She said, laughing a little as she spoke and putting her hand over his, stilling his movement and lacing her fingers into his. 

“They’re all true things.” Bucky laughed, and pulled her closer once more. “I want to kiss you again.”

Darcy found herself half-under him and Bucky’s mouth kissing from her jawline softly, up and up until he captured her lips with his. She surrendered to him then, arms around his neck and winding her fingers into his long hair. He made a noise that was almost a purring sound and she massaged the back of his neck until he was melting against her. 

She could have lost herself in him for days, maybe even had, when he pulled back and propped himself on his elbows, absentmindedly tucking errant strands of hair back from his forehead so that it didn’t fall in her face. He kissed the end of her nose and grinned as she wrinkled it when his touch tickled. 

 

“I thought…” He paused and brushed hair back from her face as well, a tender little gesture that made her skin shiver under his touch. “I thought you liked Steve.” 

Darcy cocked her head at him, as much as she was able to with him around her and her neck supported by pillows. “Bucky-” He put a finger over her lips, then pressed his mouth to them quickly, thumb curving lightly over her cheekbone as she tilted up to him. He pulled back again. 

“I thought, well. He’s the right choice, you know?” The blue of his eyes darkened a little looking at her. “He’s the hero, he doesn’t need special treatment or... “ Bucky shrugged his shoulders and let his eyes run over her face as she gazed up at him. “He’s allowed out in public without a guard and five different security protocols.” 

He was still smiling, but there was a certain twist to the corner of his mouth that had Darcy surging up to kiss it away. His hand caught the back of her head and supported her, whilst she tried her level best to show him how much what he’d said didn’t mean to her. She moulded herself to him, wrapping a leg over his hip and pulling him close, kissing him until they both needed air. 

“You know that’s not-” She began, eyes big in her face, head shaking with her fingers tangled in his hair. “Steve’s great, he is.” Darcy nodded as she spoke, and let one hand drift from his neck to his chin where she tilted it down towards her. “But he’s not you, Bucky.” 

He smiled then, a proper smile, one that lit up his face from one side to the other. Instead of kissing her, he enveloped her into a tight hug that had him rolling onto his back and pulling her around so that she lay half on top of him by the time he pulled back. 

“I can’t always get the words right.” Bucky said, pushing a hand through his hair. “So I don’t say ‘em, most times. But you’re there. You’re always there and you make it easy.” He offered her a shy grin. “You don’t make me feel stupid for not knowing things, or being panicked by the strange stuff that goes on around here.” He waved a hand in the air to accompany the last words, and Darcy giggled softly. 

“You’re everything.” He repeated, voice firm and hands warm on her hips. “I don’t want you to go anywhere.” Bucky’s voice caught a little in his throat on the last word and Darcy kissed him again, revelling in the fact that she was able to do so and he was kissing her back. 

“I’m not going anywhere.” She murmured as he pulled back a little, and lay her head on his chest where she could hear his heart thump hard underneath her. “Promise.”


End file.
